Reddit reviews PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide

In this order:

1. PHP for the World Wide Web
   
2. PHP 6 and MySQL 5
   
3. PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice and/or PHP Object-Oriented Solutions
   
4. High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, Replication, and More
   
5. Introduction to PHP PDO
   
6. Model-View-Controller MVC

Hey, I briefed over some of the comments here, and while I feel a number of them are useful and necessary, I think you need an actual hard copy book to start with, rather than jumping right the hell into the manuals.

The book I started with, with absolute minimal programming experience (just some C++ classes in high school), is Larry Ullman's PHP book. I started on the second edition, and it was everything I needed to get started programming with PHP and making dynamic applications. It should cover basics of MySQL and top the book off with regular expressions, which are absolutely necessary to any serious web developer, and he makes everything feel very accessible.

After some months of that and programming, you would be ready to enhance your skills, and his follow up Advanced PHP book covers a lot of interesting and esoteric areas. It might be more than you need, but it does start off with some practical chapters in OOP and classes.

In-between the two, he wrote a MySQL and PHP combination book that sort of acts as a stepping stone between the beginner's book and the advanced book, and it might actually be the most you need to program in PHP, but I found the Advanced book handy to use, and the first book I linked you was my personal guide and reference for about a year and a half as I grew in my skill set.

You should check out PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites by Larry Ullman, http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Dynamic-Web-Sites/dp/032152599X

Really a good book for an intro to dynamic web sites with PHP.

Great resources for learning:
http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp
Books:
Head First PHP & MYSQL AND
PHP 6 and MYSQL 5.

The trick is to repeat the same things over and over and then you will begin to pick them up and remember them off by heart.

I had been idol for the past month until a couple of days ago when I started developing an old site and It took me a little while to remember basic things like creating a class or remembering certain queries.

It's a bit like riding a bike. Just hang in there.